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Did Joseph drown in 1834?
S3E49 · Walking on Water Part 2
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Standard of Truth · Season 3 · Episode 49 · 1:07:29

Walking on Water Part 2

By 1869 an Afton, New York, local history had turned the nameless drowning preacher into "Joe Smith," who didn't drown and walked on a river instead of a pond.

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The question ·

Where did the story of Joseph Smith walking on hidden planks come from, and why does it keep being repeated?

Gerrit

Colton, bound for the New Zealand Auckland mission, and Greg, whose son serves in Richmond, ask for premium access, and the hosts reflect on how much it means to help missionaries the way Truman Madsen's tapes helped them, before Gerrit finishes the walking-on-water story. The church's newspaper, The Evening and Morning Star, answered the rumor in 1834 with sharp sarcasm, noting a similar tale had been floated years earlier and asking the gentleman's name. By 1869 a gazetteer of Afton, New York, had made the preacher Joe Smith, moved it to a river and let him live. Gerrit says the version most people meet today comes from Fawn Brodie's No Man Knows My History, which mashes that tale with an apocryphal story about Jemima Wilkinson and calls it "baseless, but still useful." He closes with a plea to check original sources and to seek a witness from the Holy Spirit.

Who comes upJoseph SmithFawn BrodieJemima WilkinsonW. W. PhelpsOliver CowderyTruman G. MadsenBrigham Young
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Did Joseph drown in 1834?

Richard recaps the cliffhanger: did Joseph drown in four inches of water?

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Intro Welcome to the Standard of Truth Podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Professor Richard LeDuc explore the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the life and teachings of Prophet Joseph Smith. They examine the original historical sources and provide context for events of the past. They approach the history of the Church with faith, expertise and humor.
Gerrit Hi, welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, and I'm joined by my friend, Professor Richard LeDuc.
Richard Hello, Gerrit. In this week's podcast, we're going to finish up on the, really the, left everybody just on pins and needles on the edge of their seats wondering, did Joseph Smith die in 1834?
Gerrit Well, yeah, did he drown in four inches of water? That, I mean, Richard looked up the statistics for us from the University of Rochester.
Richard University of Rochester. And a child, a child could drown in, in less than, or an inch or less of water.
Gerrit It's true. And that's a serious thing.
Richard It is. And so four or five inches.
Gerrit What was their statistics on fake preachers attempting to perform miraculous stunts by walking on water, but instead have planks tied to the bottom of the Myrie pond, which they're walking on, that people can't see, but then someone cut out the plank and that's the reason why they fell and then died in the water.
Richard Eight to nine inches.
Gerrit Okay.
Richard So that's what they said. University of Rochester.
Gerrit Had those statistics.
Richard It's very specific.
Gerrit This is the most specific survey of all time. And how much water for someone 13 to 14? Okay. And how much water for 50 to 70? And how much water for a fake preacher attempting to convince people that he's-
Richard Well, I believe he's a real preacher.
Gerrit Well, if the religion's fake. Okay.
Richard Well.
Gerrit I mean, you know what? We don't have his name, so we don't know what he is.
Richard Well, we later find his name.
Gerrit Well, later people would vet his name.
Richard I see. Well, so before we get into that thrilling finish-
Gerrit If you haven't listened to last week, you kind of need to go back and listen to last week. Now, I know what you're thinking, Gerrit, I didn't want to listen to it last week. I didn't want to listen to it this week.
Richard I've been arrested in Idaho, and I've been forced to listen to it.
Gerrit Officer R has me in the back of his car. I don't know what this is, but at least give me some gambling tips.
Richard And we did, we did. A game that ended, a basketball game that ended three weeks prior to when you heard it.
Gerrit I feel like that's the best way. I mean, you can always feel like when you listen to us, that you are, you know, Marty McFly from Back to the Future 2, and that you- Biff, well, you're Biff. Well, but you got the gambling tips, yeah, after it already happened.
Richard That's right.
Gerrit Yeah, just, we just need a DeLorean, get the sucker up to 88, and you're gonna be doing great.
Richard Well, Gerrit, so we are gonna go through just a couple of just short emails that don't really ask any questions, which are our favorite kind of emails.
Gerrit Our favorite emails-
Richard Hey, you guys are doing great.
Gerrit Either condemn us to hell or- Well, those are our favorites. Those are our favorites.
Richard The ones that call us to repentance.
Gerrit The ones that tell us that we're gonna burn, oh, are you gonna burn? You're gonna cook, the barbecue's already piled.
Richard So, the subject line is premium content. By the way, I feel like there's a lot of premium content emails, but not a lot of tour emails. We are going on a tour the first week of June.
Gerrit Which was referred to as our Swamp Land Tour by one of our listeners.
Richard Well, that's the Nauvoo.
Gerrit Oh, yeah.
Richard That's the Nauvoo Tour. That one's full. That one's been sold out for some time. The Swamp Land Tour's been sold out for a long time. We still do have available seats for the Palmyra, Kirtland, Palmyra, Kirtland, Baltimore.
Gerrit Baltimore. We've got Gettysburg. I mean, it's a pretty fun tour. It's one of my favorite.
Richard So this one comes to us from a soon-to-be missionary. My name is Colton. I'm from Idaho Falls, Idaho.
Gerrit Okay, all right. He's from the homeland.
Richard He is, and so anyone from Idaho, even if you're not from Idaho, say you're from Idaho.
Gerrit Yeah, that's the best way. I'm from Idaho. What part of Idaho? Detroit. I'm from Detroit, Idaho.
Richard I heard you guys, that you guys allow missionaries to have access to your premium content for free. Colton, yes, we do. While I received my mission call back in August, I have been called to serve in the New Zealand Auckland mission, speaking English. Auckland, the Idaho Falls of New Zealand.
Gerrit There's a lot of people who emails from Idaho Falls saying that they're in Auckland. It's very weird. It's another way to try to get premium content.
Richard I leave for the New Zealand MTC December 13th. I will tell you, now that's when you want to go. You escape another Idaho Falls winter by going and summering in New Zealand. We have a member of our ward in New Zealand. Gerrit and I have spent some time in New Zealand. Well, we took a cruise there.
Gerrit It was amazing. And we learned that seals are like bears. Only we were told it in a much more high pitched accent.
Richard Yeah, we were told. So it was funny. They were trying to warn us to stay away from the seals by comparing the seals to bears. But the way that they did it is that they called the bears bears?
Gerrit You gotta, this thing's like bears. They're like bears. And it was so high pitched. I mean, first of all, anyone from New Zealand ends every sentence with an up inflection. And so everything sounds like a question and everything sounds so polite.
Richard Oh, so nice.
Gerrit No matter what it is, we had a very cantankerous bus driver who was, he was very angry.
Richard Yeah.
Gerrit But it sure sounded like he was the happiest person anyone had ever met because every one of his angry stories ended up on this up inflection. Yeah, so we learned that seals are like bears.
Richard Anyway, New Zealand's lovely, the missionary that's in our ward that talks about it does so glowingly and it's a wonderful, beautiful place full of wonderful people. And we wish you the best of luck in Auckland. And I've already given you access by the time that you're hearing this. Hopefully you enjoy them. I highly recommend for those that are preparing for their mission, the Joseph Smith and the Restoration podcasts, where Gerrit spends a lot of time going through and talking about the apostasy, the reformation, and provides a lot of additional context to the beliefs of our other Christian brothers and sisters, as well as setting the table for us to talk about our beliefs sometime in 2026.
Gerrit So that's where we're at, is at some point we're going to...
Richard Well, I'm ambitious and I'm hopeful that we'll get here. Because we're in the 1500s? No, yes.
Gerrit No, we're basically knocking on the door of the 1600s at this point.
Richard Oh my gosh.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard Okay.
Gerrit And we're going to go fast.
Richard No, we're not. You're about to go into the Dutch reform.
Gerrit Well, Dutch... Yeah, boy, it's tough.
Richard Yeah, that's 2024 right there.
Gerrit How much time am I going to spend on the Spanish Civil War with the Dutch?
Richard Well, the synod of Dort's going to be literally all of the spring and summer.
Gerrit It's going to be three episodes just to describe Dort.
Richard Anyway, Colton.
Gerrit What else did he have to say?
Richard Something, something, something about how handsome we are. I absolutely love what you guys do on your podcast. It's giving me a better understanding of our early church history. And regardless of what Gerrit says, his mom is not the only one that listens to the podcast. Well, actually Colton, that is true. You and Gerrit's mom.
Gerrit Yeah, and also my aunt. My aunt Kathy listens, and she likes to text me after nearly every episode. Providing some show notes. Her and her family are longtime, well, were longtime Oklahoma residents. Yeah, not Oklahoma State.
Richard The Boomer Sooners.
Gerrit Okay, so after we lamented the end of the Oklahoma BYU game, within, I don't know, half an hour of that podcast dropping, my aunt texted and said, we were actually pretty happy with the ending of the Oklahoma game. It was a very, very, very trolling thing to do, but that's great. Colton, hopefully you have a great mission.
Richard I'm sure you will. It'll be wonderful. And I hope that you like those episodes and that you listen through those. I received, I've talked in the last episode about the high praise that I received from my son, where he said, when there's nothing else to do, it's-
Gerrit There's a bet, no better description of being a missionary.
Richard Yeah, it's fine.
Gerrit When there's nothing else to do, missionary.
Richard Well, so I received from my wife high praise. She listened to Moroni part five and said, you know, that one was actually pretty good.
Gerrit So I'm glad that we could occasionally every, that's really, I mean, you have to have achievable goals. So every fourth or fifth month, one of our wives has to tell us that what we're doing isn't a complete waste of time.
Richard Actually, it was pretty good.
Gerrit Yeah, you know, it was actually, and of course they're saying it.
Richard It really applies.
Gerrit Yeah, actually like, yeah, I was like totally stunned that it wasn't the worst dumpster fire I've ever listened to. It was, it was okay. That's where Rigdon gets it.
Richard Yeah, thanks, Beck. That actually warmed my heart. It was very nice. This next email comes to us from Greg, also about missionaries. I heard you were willing to give free access to missionaries. My son is serving in Richmond, Virginia, the Idaho Falls of Virginia.
Gerrit The Idaho Falls of Virginia. That's actually what Richmond calls itself.
Richard Richmond's more the Pocatello, though, of Virginia.
Gerrit Well, I don't know. Richmond, they're going to feel more like their son Valley.
Richard It's more the Garden City outside of Boise of Virginia. Those living in and around Garden City will find that mildly interesting. I got him listening to the podcast before his mission, which I know he enjoys. I know he would love to have access to it again. Here is his email address. Thank you for the time you spend putting the podcast together. It keeps me awake on the drive from Logan to Provo, every other week. Otherwise, I'd take up drinking caffeine.
Gerrit Well, it's not a bad thing either way, but yeah, yeah, I can see. I always worry when people say, oh yeah, I only listen to you when I'm commuting. I'm like, just so everyone's aware, we're not liable if you fall asleep.
Richard Yeah. Yeah. We should have a disclaimer.
Gerrit We should. Instead of like, welcome to the Standard of Truth podcast, it should be like, do not drive anything.
Richard Operate heavy machinery?
Gerrit We're about to talk about early Latter-day State history, and you're going to know about it until you fall asleep.
Richard Anyway, thank you very much for the kind emails. Again, we appreciate and read all of the emails and apologize we don't have the opportunity to get to all of them on the air, but appreciate all the listeners that send in. And again, we love The Missionaries. I think, and this is obviously a tip of the cap to Truman Matson, where Gerrit and I listen to these things on our mission and where I gained a greater understanding, love, appreciation, and testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith and the restored gospel. And so if there's even a fraction of a percentage.
Gerrit We aren't even the shadow that would be cast by Truman Matson. We're not even close, but in a poor attempt at trying to do honor to his name and memory, we're at least going to try to put stuff out that will be nowhere near as good as his.
Richard And I will say, it does make me happy just to think of missionaries out doing all this wonderful work in service of the Lord, and occasionally some of them listening to something that you said as it relates to Joseph Smith and the Restoration and helping increase their testimony. We receive emails from missionaries that talk about how this helped me to understand this and to teach this better, and so that warms my heart.
Gerrit It is lovely. Everyone else has got to pay them. Uh. Bring money.
Richard Uh.
Gerrit Uh. I don't think Richard was expecting that. He's uh, he's curled up on the floor right now.
Richard It just does my heart well to think of missionaries.
Gerrit But Greg, you got to pay. Don't be taking the content we send your son on his mission and then using it yourself for free.
Richard You're gonna log in as him? Yeah, my son, sure. Sure.
Gerrit Yeah, like I said, about half of our missionary emails at this point are being spoofed. The people are just sending things in. They all have like a backslash Uzbekistan in them now. And the names are all spelled wrong. Anyway, speaking of missionaries, last week we started telling the story that was shared with a friend of the show, Sister Missionary in Pennsylvania, where an antagonist called her up and claimed that Mormons in the early days in Pennsylvania had been trying to deceive people by fake walking on water by putting planks in the water. And then we went back and we read the original newspaper story that that story originated from. And then we kind of left everyone hanging. So if at this point you haven't listened to last week's episode, it's time to press pause and go back and listen to last week's episode. Then just completely delete this episode and move on to the next.
Gerrit No, this one we're going to talk about. We talked about that newspaper account, but let's talk about what follows after it. We said that it spread everywhere. And it spread everywhere to the point that by, just a little bit later in the year, the Latter-day Saints felt as if they had to actually respond to this widespread rumor. So in the Church's newspaper, The Evening and Morning Star, they publish in April, in their April issue, 1834. So again, just weeks after this, the following is taken, this is from the newspaper, the following is taken from the Philadelphia paper, the Saturday Courier of April 19th. So this is just a couple of weeks after this allegation. Now it's spreading everywhere. Now, of course, once some of these larger papers get ahold of it, well, then it's going to spread even faster.
Gerrit This is the commentary that is given by the paper. Some two or three years since, a similar story was hatched up by, we presume, the priests or their dupes. But we had supposed that it had either gone back to the native region to dwell with its author, the father of lies. So this is the Latter-day Saint editor providing commentary on this false story, right? Some two or three years since, a similar story was hatched up, we presume, by the priests or by their dupes. And notice the Latter-day Saints here are fighting a little bit of fire with fire. Like, oh, you're saying that only people believe this because they've been duped.
Richard Well, if you believe this story, you were duped.
Gerrit Yeah, right. But we had supposed that it had gone back to its native region to dwell with its author, the Father of Lies, or like its first promulgator from him, sunk into disgrace to rise no more. And that's very illustrative of the story, right? The sinking into the mud and the Father of Lies, of course, being in hell. And he thought maybe the story had gone back to hell as well. So that's the... Notice though that they say that this story has actually been circulating earlier than we said.
Richard Yeah, three years.
Gerrit Yeah, at least they said some two or three years since. So people have heard this story before, which now means that whatever person went and visited the newspaper in New York to tell them, oh, I've got some juicy information for you, they weren't reporting on something that had recently happened. They're reporting on something that had to have happened a long time ago. Look, the church has only been around for four years. I mean, it's only had followers for four and a half basically. So it can't be that long ago, but it's certainly not a contemporary event, according to this response from the church's newspaper. But in this, we were mistaken, the idea that it would go away. There are yet men to be found who are willing to exert every possible power to circulate, not only circulate, but frame falsehoods of every description and every enormity that has not a parallel in the annals of world since the creation. And such as any man of common sense would know from the face of them were impositions.
Gerrit These are carried to the four winds and peddled out by wholesale by those who profess to cultivate the science and morals of mankind and are swallowed by the greedy multitude who are led, halted by tradition and priestcraft by such as pretend to proclaim righteousness. I mean, how do you really feel? They then go on to publish the entire article. And then there's some commentary provided at the end of it. After, again, the Mormon preacher, again, not named Joseph Smith yet. The initial isn't saying anything about Joseph Smith. He walks out on the planks, but they'd sawed away one of the planks. I mean, sawed it away from the bog it was resting on. I mean, this entire story defies not only physics, it just defies logic. And then the preacher drowns in the four to five inches of water, but which was much deeper at that part.
Gerrit So maybe six inches.
Richard Well, eight to nine according to the University of Rochester.
Gerrit Well, I mean, they don't have the specific survey though. That's the problem. We do not expect, so this is what the newspaper commentary from the Latter-day Saints is. We do not expect to make this fool figured article appear any more ridiculous in the minds of discerning individuals than it really is. But it is just that such as pretend to correct the morals and improve the condition of the public with stated periodicals should be informed of their ignorance for giving publicity to a tale when with a thimble full of brains, they might know that it was not only foolish, but false.
Richard So who's writing this?
Gerrit I mean, likely? There's going to be some, there's going to be some some Phelps probably, as well as, you know, Joseph Smith is doing some of the editing as well, and Oliver Cowdery. So, I mean, they don't call out every issue to say, this is who edited this issue. But the thimble, yeah.
Richard Yeah, that's very funny.
Gerrit The thimble of brains. Firstly, it says, in a town where the delusion had made numerous converts, et cetera, will the messenger or courier or even the gentleman who first told the lie to the messenger prove that the doctrine believed by the society who are reproachfully called Mormons is a delusion? So notice this is something we noticed as we read. Well, we already know that this is not an objective article because it started off with there was a delusion in town. So the Latter-day Saints are pointing this out. From the first line, you're saying, you know it's a delusion. How do you know that it's a delusion? How'd you learn that? What's your source on that, right? But there was a pond in the western part of the state of New York extending over a large piece of ground and only a small part of it, but what was just covered by a thin sheet of water and the bottom was sufficiently hard to hold the weight of a man.
Gerrit And yet it was necessary to lay planks over it, even though it was hard enough to already hold the weight of a man. It was necessary to lay planks over it as well as the other part. A large concourse of people collected to witness the miraculous performance of this wonderful person. Where did they come from? We suppose from New England or some other distant country, as none of them knew that the pond to be traversed was a shoal and that the bottom was sufficiently hard to bear the weight of a man. So yeah, it clearly wasn't people from the neighborhood, even though the article said it was people from the neighborhood, because people from the neighborhood would be like, yeah, that's Bill's pond. You can walk right across that thing. That's not a miracle. So they all traveled there for this event, okay? So the suspect found out the secret and the playing of a trick sent a man into eternity?
Gerrit The, quote, delusion had gained numerous converts, but these poor creatures being so blinded with the deception that they had actually forgotten that the pond was a shoal. Alas, just as the miracle wrought powerfully upon the minds of the assembly, as though the truth of God hung upon the event, down went the, quote, imposter, and down went the, quote, delusion. And there the matter ends. Without recovering the body to give it another burial, or calling an inquest that an official account might be published to the world, we suppose that it could not be found in consequence of the Meier. Now, that's funny. Because again, I pointed out without reading this that when you're claiming someone died, then we have evidence of that. In almost all cases, you will have some report that the person is dead.
Gerrit At least their family will say, Bill didn't come home today. He must be either committing adultery or he died drowning in the pond, pretending to walk on water.
Richard That's the eulogy I want to hear.
Gerrit Bill, we need that to be your eulogy. That's what we need from you. It goes on. We suppose that it could not be found in consequence of the Meier. Thus ends the Tragical Event as one man made his escape to tell the news. What was his name? Query. Was not the, quote, gentleman who told the tale to the messenger employed in writing religious lies for the track peddlers to convert the world? If he is not, then we advise him that he may be. Will the courier ascertain the fact and inform us? So they pointed out basically all the things we pointed out. So let me get this straight. You have someone who doesn't have a name, who told you all of this happened. There's nothing but inconsistency after inconsistency in the story, but we're going to publish it anyway.
Gerrit Tell you what, if that guy who told you isn't already writing anti-Mormon pamphlets, you should hire him to write anti-Mormon pamphlets. I mean, frankly, Richard wonders sometimes why I get angry. But I think as we go through this...
Richard Yeah, so the reason why we wanted to do this is, number one, it's a fascinating story.
Gerrit Everyone's on the edge of their seats.
Richard Well, and I could see, by the way, it would be great if President Holland could have a similar, you know, a similar address. I could see him, you know, with similar language to...
Gerrit Yeah, I mean, he would be angry about it.
Richard Well, just almost playful at the ridiculousness of the thing.
Gerrit It's so ridiculous and absurd. And yet the church's newspaper has to take up a bunch of space to respond to it because so many people are reporting it as fact.
Richard Well, and so again, this is one of those things where this is a ridiculous story. It's absolutely ridiculous. The source is ridiculous. The story is ridiculous. The fact that it was printed in all of these papers all over the country, also ridiculous. But what it does is it allows for you to make a larger point, and the larger point is the thing that is so incredibly frustrating.
Gerrit Yeah, that anti-Mormonism is ridiculous.
Richard Well...
Gerrit Oh, sorry, no, that was me being angry.
Richard Well, no, but so it's... There are things, like you've talked about, there are aspects to church history, there are aspects to church doctrine that people have difficult time with that maybe they don't fully understand, or there's lots of different aspects of these things. But when a person just full on just lies about something, that's the thing where it's like, look...
Gerrit Yeah, I mean, look, if what we have to claim as truth is so obnoxious, then why would you need to lie about it? I mean, look, if Mormonism is such a delusion that no possible person could possibly believe it, then why would you need to fabricate a story about someone trying to walk on water? I talked about this a few episodes ago that one of the things that you'll notice in propaganda is that people will try to discredit the people who oppose them on the other side by claiming that they are being tricked, by claiming they're being paid, by claiming that they're being deceived, by claiming there's something in it for them. When, you know, Occam's razor, they might just be wrong. It's pretty easy to just be wrong. I mean, people are wrong about things all the time. But that doesn't give you any moral high ground to say, oh, these people, they think differently than me.
Gerrit How do I get moral high ground? Well, they think differently than me, and they're clearly idiots. They're idiots because they believe some guy was walking on water when he wasn't. That's what, Poppycock. And, you know, these pejorative things, they have legs, as we said last time, because it's what people want to believe. Now, this is going to get widespread publication. It's going to be reprinted multiple times. One of the earliest times where, so there is actually a track that's published in England, which attributes this entire story to it being Joseph Smith, not being an unnamed, unknown preacher. I mean, there's a lot of unnamed things in the story, right? The person who's informing you, we don't know who it is. In a place, we don't know where it is.
Richard We do know that he is a gentleman.
Gerrit Yeah, yeah, he's a gentleman.
Richard Well, that implies a certain level of honor.
Gerrit Maybe.
Richard Sure?
Gerrit Maybe, I don't think so. But yeah, we don't know where it took place. We don't know when it took place. We don't know who the preacher was, who was apparently so popular that everyone came down to see him walk on water. We have no other reports of this happening. No contemporary reports, no reports in any local newspapers, who you might find this shocking, are more than willing to publish antagonistic things about Latter-day Saints when they happen. So you'd think then they would do it. But we don't know the informants name either, right? So no part of this that could be verified is supplied for to be verified. But as I said, give it half a decade, and there's already an anti-Mormon track being published in England that's telling a similar story, only this time it's Joe Smith. Now, of course, as Richard pointed out, it's a pretty big trick if Joseph dies in 1834, but there he is at the head of the Zines Camp March a few months later.
Gerrit Well, what does that mean? Well, they changed the story. Then it's, well, Joseph was really embarrassed and struggled to the shore and da.
Richard He died of embarrassment.
Gerrit Well, he didn't die. No, he gets back, just everyone's proven.
Richard No, he died of embarrassment. He was so embarrassed.
Gerrit Yeah, oh, the death was like, oh, man. I'm not gonna be able to show my face around here again. So there's a gazetteer of Afton, New York, which is a township. It's in the location of where South Bainbridge was, where Joseph was married, when Joseph married Emma, when he runs off. So up by Josiah Stowell, by where the Knight family was.
Richard We have about a half of an episode on Bainbridge, by the way. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we do.
Gerrit I mean, and we went on our last tour. We went to the, it's in Nineveh, the Joseph Knight home. Yeah, so I mean, this is a gazetteer, which is like a local history. This is published in 1869. Okay, so this is years after, obviously, Joseph's been dead for 25 years at this point.
Richard Possibly 35.
Gerrit Well, we don't know. How would the unnamed gentleman didn't tell us. So we don't even know when this happened. And again, I have also said that you can always tell when someone is intentionally being disrespectful towards Joseph Smith by how they address him. So this is what this local county publication says. 1869, Joe Smith, okay, anyone who ever refers to him as Joe is an antagonist. You can mark it, mark it down. If you're reading anything and they make a reference to him being Joe, it's a deliberate attempt to demean him. I have not yet, in all of my reading, I have not yet found a single place where one of Joseph's friends referred to him as Joe. I haven't found it. Now I have found places where, you know, like Brigham Young will be giving a sermon and we'll say, well, all the antagonists, you know, they came up and they said, down with Joe Smith, down with, I mean, when they're quoting what other people are saying pejoratively, then they'll say it, but they don't ever refer to him as Joe.
Gerrit We don't think anyone refers to him as Joe. What's crazy is how often official publications like this will do it because it is a way of throwing shade. It's a way of making, it's a way of belittling without, you know, oh yeah, Joe Smith, he said, right? Joe Smith, the founder of Mormonism, operated quite extensively in this town and vicinity during the early years of his career as prophet. Smith was born in Sharon, Windsor County, Vermont, December 23rd, 1805, when about ten years of age, he removed with his parents to Palmyra, Wayne County, New York. The reputation of the family was very bad. And Joe was considered the worst of the whole. Look at all the sources they're citing there. Oh, there aren't any.
Richard Well, it's so well known.
Gerrit The reputation preceded them. Well, everybody knows. Somewhere about 1828 or 1829, Smith made an appearance in Afton and attended school in District Number Nine. Well, I'm almost certain he didn't attend school in District Number Nine, given the fact that he wasn't going to school then. So I don't know what this means. He certainly isn't living in Bainbridge long enough. Maybe they mean in 1825 when he's there. That's possible. So then they're just wrong with their dates.
Richard Yeah, they said about 1828.
Gerrit Or 1829. Well, why didn't they say about 1825 when he was actually there?
Richard Well, you're being a bit of a stickler.
Gerrit Yeah, I feel like, I feel like once you decide that you're going to attack somebody, you kind of have to, I don't know, be right, since you're attacking them for being wrong. Here, his supernatural powers manifested themselves by telling fortunes or foretelling futurity. This was done by placing a stone in a hat and then looking into it with it drawn over his face to exclude the light. He first organized a society at the house of Joe Knight. So now it's not just Joseph Smith that's getting the Joe treatment, Joseph Knight's getting the treatment. On the south side of the river near the Lobdell House in Broome County, excavations were made in various places where treasures and rocks containing iron pyrite were drilled for gold. Previous to digging in any places, sheep was killed. We talked about this before, about the idea that they sacrificed an animal. To convince the unbelievers that he did possess supernatural powers, Joseph announced that he would walk on water.
Gerrit The performance was to take place in the evening. And to the astonishment of unbelievers, he did walk upon the water where it was known to be several feet deep, only sinking a few inches below the surface. This proving success, a second trial was announced, which bid fair to be as successful as the first. But when he had proceeded some distance into the river, he suddenly went down, greatly to the disgust of himself and his proselytes. But to the amusement of the unbelievers, it appeared on examination that planks were laid in the river, a few inches below the surface. In the river? Now it's a river. And a few inches below the surface, but that you were still walking on it. We're losing some of the reasons why this would be effective here.
Richard So, but when is that? Do you know when that tract is in England?
Gerrit 1838.
Richard Okay. So this is quite a distance.
Gerrit And I doubt this. My assumption is that they have no knowledge of the England anti-Mormon tract.
Richard So is this the first then time?
Gerrit I mean, I wouldn't say that definitively.
Richard There might be somewhat thing else.
Gerrit Exactly. Those kinds of rumors and stories. I mean, I would have to have access to every single newspaper that ever was published to be able to say for certainty, nothing was said about it before. But certainly this would have gotten more widespread access because then other people later quote this. So this Gazette is written, this Gazetteer is written, and then there are multiple county histories that are written in the 1880s and 1890s, that are also New York histories that use these things.
Richard So Joseph, River, okay.
Gerrit Yeah. Now we know it's Joseph instead of just some preacher. And notice Joseph doesn't die and notice it's a river. But the planks, still the planks. The only way to walk on water is planks. I'm sure that's what Jesus did. Anyway, they were laid a few inches below the surface, and some wicked boys had removed a plank, which caused the prophet to go down like any other mortal. So let's think about this for a second. Again, back to the first Latter-day Saint rebuttal of this. So Joseph's walking out in the water, and it looks like he's walking on the water. So regardless of what's going on there, however thick the plank is, we're talking at best two inches, maybe three. And because they removed one of the boards that's on the ground, on the bottom of the, Joseph plunges headlong into the water after that.
Richard So, but these boys were both aware of the planks, and then before the event, went and removed the planks.
Gerrit But Joseph wasn't aware, even though you'd think the thing he would do would be to-
Richard Go ahead and test it.
Gerrit Yeah, I mean-
Richard You want to just jump on it, man.
Gerrit Yeah, it's kind of like going to a trampoline park. Just, all right, does this, here we go.
Richard They're gonna hold me.
Gerrit I mean, of course, there's a whole bunch of other negative things in here. Now, of course, this Afton town gazetteer is aware that Latter-day Saints are thoroughly hated in 1869 in the United States. They are one of the most universal pejoratives in the United States in 1869. And their little township is connected to it because there were a bunch of believers that were there like the Knights. So what does this township try to do? Tries to demonstrate how they had nothing to do with it, that this is all just garbage. So he's gonna go on and say a whole bunch of other negative things about Joseph. After pretending to heal the sick and cast out devils, he gained quite a number of followers. But at length came to grief by being prosecuted as an imposter. So they're going to talk about the fact that Joseph was eventually put on trial for casting a spirit out of, out of newel night.
Gerrit And so they're going to talk about that. And it kind of goes on with that. That's kind of another story. But this is a good example of how the story originally was one thing, but then to fit its needs, it needed to be something else. So now we're to believe that we do know where this took place. It took place there in Afton, right? But we're not told, as Latter-day Saints pointed out, for that to be the case, you would need a whole bunch of people from somewhere else there who didn't know the river or pond, but now they're saying river. That's not what this account is saying. In fact, this account provides far less explanation of how this could actually work. At least the first guy is like, yeah, the reason why it worked is because it was so hard and so shallow, but it didn't look like it was shallow, so they just put planks on the bottom. This one's just like, yeah, it's in the middle of the river, and as soon as the plank was gone, it was like seven foot of water.
Richard So is this something that happens then regularly? You have one account that says one thing, then this account takes, it gives you a name of a person, and it gives you a location. So then I just take both of those accounts and combine them.
Gerrit And suddenly it becomes credible, because now I know where it took place, and I know that it was Joe Smith, the Mormon founder, right? As to why the person who accosted these sister missionaries said what they said, though, I think we can actually bounce forward to one of the all-time terrible pieces of written literature that is pretending to be academic, and that is the book written by Fawn Brody called No Man Knows My History. I could spend many episodes on this book, but frankly, look, the book at this point is 80 years old. Anyone who's quoting to you from a history book written 80 years ago needs to get updated sources.
Richard But it is regularly quoted, and it is regularly referenced.
Gerrit And why is it quoted regularly? Is it because it's new? Is it because it's cutting edge? Is it because the author has so many plaudits for her amazing work in the Ph.D. field? No.
Richard Fawn Brody is essentially Casey Kasem. She plays the hits.
Gerrit She plays the hits with the countdown. So it's popular because it says to people what they want to hear. And frankly, while she was a professor at UCLA, her training was not in history at all. Undergraduate and master's degree were both in English. And she was a member of the church, she's going to leave the church, and she's going to write this book. It is so dripping with inaccuracies and bias, but it just so happens to include this story. And so my guess is that, look, I'm not going to give that much credit to the person who called you, sister. I very much doubt that they read all of Fawn Brody's book because that would require reading a book. And so my guess is they didn't.
Gerrit My guess is that on some anti-Mormon subreddit or blog, someone quoted that story from her book, and that's why they called you. Hey, let's take a journey. Let's take a little trip.
Richard And also, the end here, this particular thing he may have read online might not have even included the end, right? So maybe he...
Gerrit Yeah, frankly, we don't really know, and that's what happens when you have someone who's doing a fly-by anti-Mormonism. When they're doing the double-summersault anti-Mormonism front flip, you don't really know. They're not willing to tell you why they have the sources they have. But this is where it comes from. This is from page 83 is where this starts. Now, one of the things that Fawn Brodie is trying to do is to try to demonstrate that Joseph Smith is like a lot of other people that are essentially religious zealots who are false prophets. I'm going to read a little bit of this just so you can understand the context. I don't want to be accused of taking it out of context, although again, if you're citing an 80-year-old book as your evidence for why something happened, then you don't understand sources and you need to read something else. That's all there is to it.
Gerrit I mean, there are times that there are books that are so groundbreaking that yeah, they stand the test of time. In the field of history, it's almost none of them. I mean, you would make reference to them when you're doing a historiography, but you wouldn't cite to it as being authoritative, in part because, and this is not any historian's fault, over the course of a hundred years, you're going to find hundreds of more documents. So if you take the conclusion of someone a hundred years ago, guess what? They won't even have the documents you have to make that conclusion. Now, maybe they'll still make a really bad conclusion, in this case, probably, but they don't even have all of the documents. So while rival prophets like Isaac Bullard, Jemima Wilkinson and Joseph Dilks suffered from no compulsion whatever to prove their pretensions, Joseph Smith, whether for a lack of self-confidence or the greater reasonableness of his nature, seems to have felt urgently the need for preparation and for confirming testimony.
Gerrit The Book of Mormon itself was not enough. He needed first three and then Eight Witnesses to its authenticity. And in later years, he continued to exploit facts or legends that would tend to support the book's historical accuracy.
Richard Hold on, hold on. So she's citing as one of his problems or insecurities that he needed three or Eight Witnesses to confirm the particular thing that he said.
Gerrit We could do this with almost every single page of this book.
Richard The Book of Mormon isn't enough. He had to have witnesses, which also are garbage. She would later claim...
Gerrit Right, so notice how she's turning things on exactly on their head, right? Rather than saying, although it's really hard to believe the story that an angel brought gold plates to Joseph Smith, there were 11 witnesses who said that Joseph Smith had those plates and three of them who said he saw an angel. Now that's responsible. It is certainly an okay thing as a historian to say, it's a pretty hard tale to believe. And in fact, it's a miracle. So yes, she's actually arguing it from the other direction. Joseph Smith is so insecure. Joseph Smith is such a charlatan that he, the fact that he had witnesses of the plates proves that he's a liar. Now, in what world does that exist? In what world does the fact that you have witnesses to an event prove that it didn't happen? I'll tell you whose world, Fawn Brody's world.
Gerrit That in her world, the fact that there were witnesses to it is proof that it's false. Or said no one ever that thing. Let me go back to reading. An apocryphal story about Jemima Wilkinson relates that one day she led her colony to the shore of Lake Seneca and told them that she was about to walk upon the water. She first, now notice she said an apocryphal story. Now, whenever you hear the term apocryphal, what does that mean? It's a legend. What it means, especially when you're reading in an academic sense, and as crappy as that book is, it's at least purporting itself to be an academic work. It's claiming to be an academic work. It means that the scholar has no source for it. It means I've tried to track down the source for it, and all I found was rumors and, hey, someone 90 years later saying this happened.
Gerrit And so when you ever hear a scholar say it's an apocryphal story, it's a way of them saying, I don't have a source for this, but I still want to talk about it because it tries to prove the point that I want to make anyway, even though I don't have a source for it. They don't write that though, because that doesn't read as well. I mean, we just got done having a conversation about the fact that the very fact that Joseph Smith had witnesses of the Book of Mormon proved that it wasn't true.
Richard So how would that work? So I'm in a car accident. I'm very badly injured.
Gerrit Yeah, and then you go to the court, and the judge says, are there any witnesses of the accident? Yes, I have 11 witnesses.
Richard Well, there were three in the car, and then there were eight.
Gerrit Three in the car, there were eight people watching. The eight people lifted the car off of me after the guy ran the stop sign. So you have 11 witnesses. We have 11 witnesses of what happened. And the judge is saying, well, that proves there wasn't even a car accident. Cars don't exist, and you, sir, aren't even a real person. Case dismissed. I mean, that's essentially where she's at. The very fact that Joseph had witnesses proves he can't possibly be telling the truth. In any event, she is saying that this is an apocryphal story about Jemima Wilkinson, which you'll notice there is no footnote because it's apocryphal. She's clearly getting it from somewhere, so why doesn't she tell us where she's getting it from? Because the source is so bad that it would make her look bad to give the source.
Richard So the source is too bad for this book.
Gerrit Which is saying, look, if there's any Jemima Wilkinson fans out there, I'm sorry. Anyway, this is what she says. An apocryphal story about Jemima Wilkinson relates that one day she led her colony to the shore of Seneca Lake and told them that she was about to walk upon the water. First, however, she tried to the surface gingerly. And when her toes broke through, she turned back unabashed to the shore, saying coolly that her followers' faith was already of such prodigious strength that no miracle was necessary. Notice what we had already said before. This whole, oh, I'm going to try to walk on water, ruse, like painting it as a ruse, was being used by people in the majority against other religious minorities. She said she was going to walk on water, but when she realized she couldn't, she said, oh, my followers have so much faith, I don't need to, because that makes her seem ridiculous.
Gerrit So after having told that ridiculous story, she moves on. There is a similar and equally apocryphal story about Joseph Smith. So she's acknowledging what you'd have to, and that is there's no source for this. An equally apocryphal story about Joseph Smith, which holds that he too boasted that he would walk upon the water, but that he secretly built a plank bridge underneath the surface of the pond. Again, notice Ms. Brody doesn't take the time to explain how in the world that would actually work.
Richard What she does do, though, is she does combine those two sources.
Gerrit She's now combining both sources, yep. She's taking the later source that's made it Joseph Smith and the earlier source and mashing them together as two terrible sources. The public demonstration was a noteworthy success until he reached the middle when, thanks to mischievous boys, instead of planks, he trod on water and barely escaped drowning. So now Joseph almost drowned, like the original story of the preacher drowning, only Joseph obviously didn't drown. I mean, now probably the greatest, the greatest problem of what her inclusion of this is, is that her final sentence of that paragraph is, baseless though this story may be, it is nonetheless symbolic.
Gerrit I got to tell you, I have a PhD in history, and I have read a lot of garbage in my day. I have read literally millions of words, some great arguments, some terrible, some that are middle of the road, many of them boring, anything that Richard's produced, right to sleep, right? I don't know that I've ever read a worse summation sentence of a garbage water source of that. Here's a source that I don't have a source for that claims this antagonistic thing about Joseph Smith. It can't be proven. There's no way to demonstrate it. I don't have a source for it, but baseless though the story may be, it is symbolic. Symbolic of what? The horrific historian you are?
Gerrit The only symbolism I see here is, when I don't have a source, but I still want to say something really negative, I'm going to just invent one. And no, you don't get away just by saying it's an apocryphal story. Because how is it that I'm able to track down where it originates? But you're not, right? I mean, I'm sure you could have. You just didn't want to, because then it would demonstrate what a terrible story, because it wasn't about Joseph Smith at all in its original iteration, right? So I can't trace it back to the original, because then it sounds like it's not even Joseph Smith. And I just said, let me tell you something about Joseph Smith that shows how he boasted and shows about his, his, his, his inexperience and shows about, it's not even a story about him. But baseless, though this story may be, it's symbolic.
Gerrit I can't imagine a more poorly written sentence. I just supplied you with a story that has no source, that has no evidence, that is clearly a folk tale that changes over the course of time.
Richard It's baseless.
Gerrit It's baseless, but still useful. Why in the world would anything that's baseless be useful? I mean, again, imagine the politician that you don't like from the other party. Imagine, put that person in your mind. Can you imagine a world where you hear a story about them, which is incredibly negative, and then it's proven definitively that it never actually happened, and saying the words, well, even though there's no evidence that it happened and it obviously didn't happen, he's still the kind of person that would do that. I mean, if you find yourself in a place where evidence doesn't matter to you at all, then I kindly suggest that you take a pretty big step back if you get to the point where evidence doesn't matter at all.
Richard So, Gerrit, people might be thinking, okay, well, this is just a silly story that's ridiculous.
Gerrit Much like the podcast.
Richard So it's on brand, but this didn't happen, this is ridiculous. Why are you so upset about something that's just so silly and trivial? This isn't taking anybody's testimony. This isn't taking anybody away from the gospel. What is it about this that's making you so angry and upset?
Gerrit Well, first of all, I'm sure it has taken some people away from the gospel. I mean, I'm going to guess that the guy who called the missionaries up and used it as his coup de gras, his amazing evidence that Mormonism is false, I'm going to guess that there's other people that he's talked to about it. I mean, these silly stories that seem silly to us when people don't have proper context, right? I mean, someone's saying, oh, you know, I've been reading the Book of Mormon. And that guy says, oh, well, you should know that Joseph Smith is such a fraud, that there are like actual proof, there's like actual proof that he tried to walk on water by putting boards underneath the water just to lie to everybody. And you're going to believe that. Now, that person who's just in the original stages of listening and thinking, they might stop their, they might stop their inquiry at that point. Now, you hope that they don't, but if the person who's saying it to them is someone that they respect or someone they think is intelligent, they might.
Richard But in addition to that, it is, it's symbolic of kind of the pattern and way.
Gerrit It's baseless though symbolic.
Richard Well, but it is baseless though symbolic. And that is more of the pattern, the way that people do things. And again, you've said this many, many times, but the idea of somebody coming with something that is a difficult thing or a challenge versus something that's just a blatant lie.
Gerrit Right. And that's basically what we're dealing with here. The very fact that the church had to respond to a made up lie from an anonymous source at an anonymous time in an anonymous place about an anonymous person dying, and that that somehow turns into it was actually Joseph Smith, but don't worry, he didn't die. But don't worry, we eventually did kill him. I mean, the reality is it's frustrating because this is something that's important to people. And the very people who claim, well, I'm just trying to tell people the truth. I'm just trying to get people the truth. Apparently are also the people who don't care about sources and who don't care about truth. It's fine that not everyone's a Latter-day Saint. Not everyone's going to be a Latter-day Saint. And thankfully, because I'm a Latter-day Saint, I know that everyone's going to be saved anyway. I don't believe in the hell that I keep getting condemned to. So it's not as big an issue for me.
Gerrit At the same time, when people from a position of trust and authority claim that they know the insides of how something actually happened and they are falsifying sources or are using sources that they know are fraudulent, well, then what are we talking about? We're talking about destroying people's lives and testimonies. And you're right, there's probably not a whole lot of people listening who are like, well, I was on my way to the temple and I heard Joe Smith put planks in the water, and that's it, and I'm out. There's probably not a lot of people doing that. At the same time, it is symbolic of the type of antagonistic literature that is directed at Joseph Smith. When Joseph Smith finally commissions the history to be written, when he finally says, okay, that's it, we need to actually write a history of the church, it's not a surprise that the way he opens it is this way.
Gerrit Owing to the many reports which have been put into circulation by evil disposed and designing persons in relation to the rise and progress of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, all of which have been designed by the authors thereof to militate against its character as a Church and its progress in the world, I have been induced to write this history, to disabuse the public mind, and to put all the inquirers of truth in possession of the facts as they have transpired in relation both to myself and the Church so far as I have such facts in my possession. The beginning paragraph of Joseph Smith's history is explaining why he has to write it in the first place. Why do I have to write it? I have to write it because of all of the lies that are being circulated.
Gerrit And notice, by evil disposed and designing persons, that means it's not just a casual accident. Someone did it deliberately. I had a friend of mine recently who was reading something, and it was kind of one of these conspiracy theory books that claims there's some kind of wider conspiracy that's going on, and everyone's controlling everything. It was one of those. And this author, in order to prove the point about how global and nefarious the history is, made a claim that involved Brigham Young being involved in it. And so this person, who didn't know it had anything to do with Mormonism at all, called me up and they said, hey, have you heard about this? And we went through the sources to demonstrate that it was completely made up, this claim. And because she really wanted to believe the rest of the book, she said, well, I'm sure that he didn't really even know that that would be taken as a negative bringing that up.
Gerrit And I said, well, I guess you could think that. But here's the reality. Whoever this author is, knew enough to know who Brigham Young was and to know that Latter-day Saints are viewed nefariously. And the entire point of this entry was to claim that Brigham Young was, that it was so nefarious that even Brigham Young was involved. That's deliberate. It's not an accident. It's a way of driving home your political point that is treading on the backs of both truth and a persecuted religious minority. That's the reality. So look, was this the most important thing? Did we really need to spend two podcasts on it? I guess not. But hopefully what it reinforces to everyone is sources matter.
Gerrit Before you get upset about literally anything, you read or hear, you need to know what the original source is. And then you need to take a little bit of time, use a little bit of your own logic, use a little bit of your own spirit of discernment, and not jump to conclusions. Look, Joseph Smith was promised that his name would be had for good and evil among all nations and people, right? Everyone's going to say that. So we shouldn't immediately, as soon as we hear something negative, assume that it must in fact be true. I know that there is a lot of negative. I hear a lot of negative. People email me negative. I get it. I know there's a lot of negative.
Gerrit And that's exactly what the angel promised Joseph was going to happen. And look, we are not a very big religion. We are teeny in the size of the world. And the outsized response of people desperate to prove that it's not true, in and of itself, I think demonstrates something about the character of the church and its rise and its progress. Now, the other thing too, is to always stop and realize, when you have a story that can't be verified like that, when it's something troubling about church history that you don't know the if-ands or buts about, you need to stop and say, okay, so would this then prove that Joseph Smith was not a prophet of God? If, in fact, this story were true in some way, would it prove that Joseph Smith was not a prophet of God?
Gerrit The reality is, there is only one way for every person listening to know whether or not Joseph Smith was a prophet. And that is through the Holy Spirit of God. That's it. No matter how much we study, no matter how logical we want to be, it is the same way that we know whether or not Jesus is our Savior. You can't prove it, you can't argue it, you can't logically make it work. The only way you can know that Jesus is your Savior is by the Holy Spirit. And that that same Savior appeared to Joseph Smith multiple times, gave him the power to translate the Book of Mormon, to receive the dozens and dozens and dozens of revelations that fill the Doctrine and Covenants, that completely transform our understanding of who we are, why this earth exists, what our purpose is, who the God we worship is.
Gerrit That is important knowledge, and we can't simply trade it away because we don't have the answers to everything. So hopefully people found this interesting. At the very least, I want to have at least a few of our listeners try putting planks of wood in a pond to see if they can walk on water and maybe get out of doing their home teaching. Thank you so much for listening.
Intro Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat. If you know anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. And for more resources, visit standardoftruth.com. Until next time.

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I've been arrested in Idaho, and I've been forced to listen to it.

RichardBanter

Yeah, that's the best way. I'm from Idaho. What part of Idaho? Detroit. I'm from Detroit, Idaho.

GerritBanter

Instead of like, welcome to the Standard of Truth podcast, it should be like, do not drive anything.

GerritBanter

Yeah, I mean, look, if what we have to claim as truth is so obnoxious, then why would you need to lie about it?

GerritInsight

Fawn Brody is essentially Casey Kasem. She plays the hits.

RichardBanter

In what world does the fact that you have witnesses to an event prove that it didn't happen?

GerritInsight

Before you get upset about literally anything, you read or hear, you need to know what the original source is.

GerritInsight

The reality is, there is only one way for every person listening to know whether or not Joseph Smith was a prophet. And that is through the Holy Spirit of God.

GerritInsight

At the very least, I want to have at least a few of our listeners try putting planks of wood in a pond to see if they can walk on water and maybe get out of doing their home teaching.

GerritBanter

More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
Joseph Smith was caught faking a walk on water with hidden planks.
Having witnesses to the Book of Mormon plates shows Joseph was insecure about a fraud.
Take it to classReady to use in a lesson or a talk.

Take it to class

Ready to copy into a lesson or a text

Within weeks of the 1834 story, the Church's Evening and the Morning Star asked the obvious questions: what was the preacher's name, where was the body, and who was the gentleman who told it?

Stories grow: an unnamed preacher who drowned in a pond became "Joe Smith" on a river who survived, and then a historian merged it with another legend.

A source a scholar calls "apocryphal" or "baseless" can't support a conclusion, no matter how symbolic it seems.

Check the original source before letting a story trouble you, and remember that a witness of Joseph Smith comes the same way as a witness of Jesus: by the Holy Spirit.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
Did Joseph drown in 1834?Part 2 cliffhanger, plus the University of Rochester's oddly specific drowning survey: eight to nine inches for fake preachers (0:46, 1:20, 1:39).
Officer RA listener arrested in Idaho and forced to listen asks for gambling tips, which arrive three weeks late (2:26, 2:29, 2:36).
IdahoColton from Idaho Falls, "Detroit, Idaho," and Richmond as the Idaho Falls, Pocatello or Garden City of Virginia (4:15, 4:22, 10:22, 10:33).
Seals are like bearsA cruise warning in a New Zealand up-inflection, from an angry bus driver who sounded delighted (5:16, 5:39, 6:04).
Knocking on the door of the 1600sThe premium series' pace: three episodes just to describe the Synod of Dort (7:16, 7:42).
The audience: Gerrit's momColton insists Gerrit's mom isn't the only listener, and Aunt Kathy, a Sooner, texts show notes (7:50, 8:08, 8:34).
Achievable goalsBecky says Moroni Part 5 was "actually pretty good," and Gerrit says that's where Rigdon gets it (9:22, 9:58).
Do not operate heavy machineryGreg stays awake driving Logan to Provo, and the hosts want a disclaimer (10:33, 11:15).
Everyone else has got to payGerrit's "bring money" leaves Richard curled up on the floor, and Greg can't log in as his son (12:56, 13:08, 13:20).
Bill the adultererHe didn't come home today; he's either committing adultery or drowning while pretending to walk on water (23:42, 23:56).
The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown MailbagSend Gerrit and Richard your question.

The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

Your question could be next week’s episode
Questions from Litners drive a lot of episodes. Send yours. If it makes the show, Richard reads it on air.
Go deeperWhere to read more.

Go deeper

Deep dives the episode points toward
Read the April 1834 Evening and the Morning Star response in full and compare it with the original "Tragical Event" article (14:36).
How Fawn Brodie's No Man Knows My History handles its sources, and why historians cite newer work today (40:34).
Jemima Wilkinson and other prophet figures in New York's burned-over district (44:20).
Joseph Smith's 1825 time in South Bainbridge and Afton with Josiah Stowell and the Knights (30:11).
SOT Litner · S3E49.